Our normal waking state of awareness allows us to perceive those aspects of the world which can be accessed by the normal five senses, touch, hearing, sights, taste and smell.
In altered states of awareness we are able to perceive aspects of the world we are not normally able to perceive. The most commonly experienced altered state is dreams, and most of us have memories of dreams during which we have perceived reality in vastly different ways.
Other altered states are achieved through meditation, and through both dreams and meditation we are able to take conscious control of these states.
Dreams
Another type of altered state occurs during sleep. All mystical and occult systems work with sleep states, but as with meditation, none agree on their interpretations of them. There are many different sleep states and many different types of dreams, and they can be infuriatingly obscure when you are trying to work out what they mean.
The first process when you start working with dreams is to give yourself the message that you now intend to take your dreams seriously. If you write down your dreams, however sporadic or trivial they seem, you will start to dream more. Dreams seem to act like a spoilt child who says "prove that you are going to take notice of me" before they start responding to you properly.
Dreams are often loaded with obscure symbolism. One theory is that, in our dream state, we are more aware than in our waking state. Dreams are one mechanism of getting this awareness through to our waking state. However, in the waking state we might resist this information, either because it is too painful, such as repressed memories of childhood trauma, or because it contravenes our basic beliefs in some way.
The dreams slowly infiltrate our waking awareness with this resisted information, principally by leaving us with a "feeling" which we can carry with us all day as we remember the dream, even though we don't know what it means. Once we are aware that we no longer want to hide from, or resist this knowledge, we will start to dream more frequently, and as we are ready for the message, the obscure symbolism becomes clearer until we finally get it. A good rule of thumb is that the more obscure the symbolism of the dream, the more resistance the truth would meet if it confronted us head on.
Lucid Dreaming
I said a little about this when talking about astral or etheric traveling. Sub-lucid and lucid dreams appear to be the same phenomenon as etheric projection. The difference is that when we travel we normally do it from a conscious state. With lucid dreams we become aware that we are dreaming from within a dream while we are sleeping. With practice we are able to take over the dream and do what we want with it. We can consciously “travel” and engage in activities willfully.
Premonitions and Rehearsals
Many dreams are premonitions of future events in which we are not physically involved or rehearsals for situations in which we are involved. There is a huge body of evidence supporting the accuracy of such dreams and there is now a proliferation of organisations on the internet with which you can register your premonition.
If you get premonitions, you can start with http://mainportals.com/precog.shtml and cruise around from there.
Lucid Dreaming
I said a little about this when talking about astral or etheric traveling. Sub-lucid and lucid dreams appear to be the same phenomenon as etheric projection. The difference is that when we travel we normally do it from a conscious state. With lucid dreams we become aware that we are dreaming from within a dream while we are sleeping. With practice we are able to take over the dream and do what we want with it. We can consciously “travel” and engage in activities willfully.
Premonitions and Rehearsals
Many dreams are premonitions of future events in which we are not physically involved or rehearsals for situations in which we are involved. There is a huge body of evidence supporting the accuracy of such dreams and there is now a proliferation of organisations on the internet with which you can register your premonition.
If you get premonitions, you can start with http://mainportals.com/precog.shtml and cruise around from there.
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